What are public attitudes to the Bus Éireann strike? April 6, 2017

Any sense of how that aspect of the struggle is going? I was in a taxi earlier in the week and was surprised at how – unprompted – supportive the driver was of the workers in BÉ. Any other straws in the wind?

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Listened to a bit of Morning Ireland today on the internet like and Paschal Sheehy was interviewing commuters in Cork who face up a 30- minute walk into work (and back!) as consequence of the strike. The humanity! Seriously, is a 30- minute walk something people can’t do anymore?

There’s the usual cries of privatise it, let it sink , I can get a bus to Galway for half the price and so on…… Outside of Dublin it seems a different matter as people at some stage of their lives have depended on the local bus service, be it to get to school , college or work. It also fits into the Rural Ireland being ignored narrative.
I also think Shane Ross has come out badly from it. I may be wrong but I’d imagine a certain former Taoiseach would have thrashed out a deal behind closed doors.

” Outside of Dublin it seems a different matter as people at some stage of their lives have depended on the local bus service, be it to get to school , college or work. It also fits into the Rural Ireland being ignored narrative.”.

There certainly seems to be more hostility to the strikers in Cork,
where I live, than in Dublin. I’ve heard several comments from people that the strikers are being selfish and irresponsible. On the other hand, I’ve also heard people attacking the BE management, saying the strike is because of their greed and disdain for public service.

Nobody seems to have a good word for Shane Ross.

Side note: I work with a charity for the elderly, and I’ve sometimes gotten calls from older people worried they won’t be able to get to the doctor or post office ‘coz of the strike. None of them said anything negative about the strikers though.

Not sure that he is. He hasn’t done or said anything of use either way on the strike. He isn’t publicly pandering to to the let it go or Privatise it crowd.
There’s also the feeling that this is the type of thing that he would have been calling for the Ministers head for the lack of intervention were he writing for the Sunday Independent.